Just before the second egg touching, a group of Oldtime rovers find themselves reunited.

When

There is 1 turn 2 months and 3 days until the 12th pass.

Where

Candidate Barracks, Southern Weyr

Candidate BarracksPerhaps the safest place in the weyr, these barracks: the stonework here is old, perhaps as old as the weyr is itself, for the uncanny cleanliness of ancient stonecutters marks neat corners and perfect arches. Richly-lit by glowlight, tapestries reflect scenes of yore from the walls - dragons flaming, holders farming, and one particularly well-made that depicts the impression of a dark-haired girl to a light-toned gold dragonet, dripping and fierce. The barracks themselves are open-air, with not even a curtain to divide the space of male from female. Bunk-bed style cots line each wall, hammocks strung along the middle for those unfortunate enough to lack the privacy that an adjoining wall brings. There are privies in the back and locker-style item storage in the front, and one especially large table next to a book-case filled with basic Harper texts.

See this cot over here? Ellen is half beneath it, her Candidate ass sticking out like a canine that's CHEWING something it know it's not supposed to have. Rarrlglarlgh.

The least likely person to come walking in here with a scraggly piece of hide clutched in his grubby hands does exactly that. Dimitri, glaring down, wanders in and idly striides past a few cots before— wait. He knows those rarrlglarlghs. And FREEZES, peering over his STUPID letter-scrawled bit of hide. His expression clears. "Ellen…?"

GRUNT. "Y'recognize me by m'ass?" Ellen WIGGLES it at the room. For being all knuckley bones and growing limbs, you still would sooner call this view a WIDE load than a narrow one. Rather than come out from under the bed, she flattens out belly-down and wriggles the rest of the way under the bed. There's a series of grunts and thumps that make the bed above jump, then her head is abruptly STICKING out, frowning up at Dimitri, "Yo, 'Mitri. They got me." Which means she wants Dimitri to hand her the piece of hide he was glaring at. Her reaching hand demands it.

Dimitri never was the graceful one - a wide grin later and he's on his own ass, sitting in front of that cot to beam at the Ellen-head. "I could recognise anyone here by their ass. D'ya ever hear of the fine art of rumpology?" With a rolling R, just to make it more legit. Because it is so a thing. The bit of hide is deposted into grabby hand, if only so he can reach and HAIR RUFFLE. The hide has some scrawlings— a recipe of sorts, looks like, in chiiildishly messy letters and with plenty of errant stains. Stupid quills. But! Cheerfully, "I haven't been kicked out yet!"

"Y'know I always pegged you as a tits man," Ellen doesn't seem to care much that she's even saying words, mostly reading whatever dark missive might be scrawled on Dimitri's hide - "The fuck's this shit, you feedin' the masses t'night?" She gets RUFFLED. She doesn't seem to NOTICE, except that it makes a crazy head of errant dirty-blond ('dirty' being both descriptor and current condition today - two for one!) locks all sticking out at wild angles. She turns over onto her stomach to just… sprawl out her arms across the floor. GLEGH. Like road kill. Her cheek is all smooshed up against the ground, eyes rolling to far corner to look up at her company, "Yet." It is - a word. "How'd they even bag you in'a first place?"

Ass, tits, EH. Dimitri simply sits and smiles a perfect(ly obnoxious) smile, though the following question does get an answer, "They're teaching me how to read and write faster." He waves a hand around in a vague gesture, his face stuck halfway between resenting sneer and uncaring half-lidding of eyes. "I guess it was about time." When Ellen flops, so does he. Onto his BACK, his head near her arms, his hands clasping together on his stomach. "You know the drill. 'We need everyone we can find', blah, blah." Yes, that quote's complete with an improvised dullard-voice. His eyes trail upward. "… So the Headman and Nika teamed up on me. 'Twas a fight, you should'a seen it."

"Blood 'n guts everywhere, huh?" with great effort, Ellen raises her hand to place the hide over Dimitri's face like a funeral shroud. Pfff. "Rain of toads, women weeping un'er tables, teeth rollin' cross the ground like dice." Muttering-muttering, while slowly she's scrubbing her hands through her own hair - discovering a random feather which she inserts into Dimitri's curls. Here. Don't want it. "Can y'read your own rump?"

"All of those things, and THEN SOME." This comes mumbled from under that bit of hide. The feather, too, gets to stay exactly where it is. "It's too dangerous." NOW he lifts the hide, to peeek from under it into Ellen's direction. With his eyebrows in low, SERIOUS mode. "My rump is a thing of rarity. The knowledge I would gain from doing that— I wouldn't be able to guarantee— wait." And up go his eyebrows again, a hint of a smile returning to his face. "How'd they catch you? Did it involve a net."

"Y'just can't find it without a map." C'mon, that set-up was too perfect, and Ellen is slowly peeling back the side of her lip to expose the small square lizardy-teeth on her left side. "I could cram a flag in it, y'wanna landmark." She withdraws back under the bed, then, like a mechanic scootering back under a vehicle, and from Dimitri's vantage he'll be able to see a little more of what she's up to. Carefully slitting open the bottom of her mattress where she's currently tucking away a few items from her belt pouch. "Ksh," vague, dismissive sound, "Went out with a Smithfriend. We were shootin' few new arrow types we were workin on in the jungle - some goldrider bint nearly got shot, I guess." She looks over at Dimitri and says with alarming sincerity, "Y'know hittin' the gold is twenty points in dragon darts? - anyway. She shit the bed, 'n instead of draggin' in just her candidaty-kitty - Sytin? Y'know'm? - I got dragged in, too." She pulls a needle from a pocket and fixes it in her teeth as she begins to unspool some thread from her sleeve. "So."

In the (all too brief) interval between chores and lessons, Cerise has made an escape back to the barracks. Labor this morning appears to have consisted of something involving dirt, as she's stained to her elbows with it, there are dark smudges on her face, and on the legs visible beneath the shin-length hem of her dress as well. Still mostly silent, she says nothing upon seeing a Dimitri on the floor and a pair of thick, boyish legs sticking out from beneath a bunk- but then, she hardly needs a voice, with eyebrows as thick as hers. One feathery line of dark hair lifts expectantly.

Whereas Dimitri might often be composed entirely of words, now he seems content just to listen. The bit of hide is disposed of - by flinging it across the room, apparently, with little regard for as to where it'll land. His back aaarches as Ellen goes off and disappears under the bed again, so he can scan his eyes over the bottom of that mattress. His eyebrows shoot up and his grin returns full force, while the fingers of one hand slips into one of his trouser pockets. "Yeah, I know 'm. One of the youngens? Might've been on top of him the other day," this is said very matter-of-factly, and in the same breath he adds, "you want this?" Out comes his hand, a marble precariously between two fingers. It might remind one very vaguely of a STAR, and is rolled under the cot without further thought. "You seem like the kind'a-" Kid? Girl? Person? "-calf'd have better things to do." Then, his eyes trail back upward— and suddenly there's a Cerise. There's also still a feather sticking out of his hair. "Oh look!" He props himself up onto his elbows, beaming again, "It's the sandbag carrying wonder! Feeling any better?" You'd almost thing, by the way he says it, that he's hoping for a no.

"Moo." Ellen pulls back her lips from the needle gripped in them to make the sound - it's like she's growling a cow-low at Dimitri. Calf'll do. "Fuckyeah, son, I got'a ton of shit t'do. But not a lotta trade you can make with a Weyr'f you've pissed off a goldrider. Nothing'll cock-up business like a goldcock." She drops a big hand down on the rolling marble and holds it up between her own thumb and forefinger, flicking her eyes over the star. Her bared-teeth remain bared, but with lips forming more of a sinister crocodilian grin - how did Dimitri know she loved stars. She tucks the marble up inside her mattress to join the rest of her stash. And then she begins re-sewing the hole shut with the needle and thread unraveling from her sleeve. Marble-accepted. "Hey, feet." She greets what part of Cerise she can SEE.

Naturally the first thing that Cerise does is cock an arm up to make a muscle. Check out that bicep! After this impromptu gun show, she sticks her swollen, bruised tongue out at Dimitri- more as demonstration than attempt at being sassy- and ambles forward to join the floor part. Flop, down she goes, arranging herself in a half-lotus beside Ellen's legs. The girl's knee receives a pat of greeting. The pat transitions then into testing pokes at waist and ribs. Is this an Ellen? Look, Dimiwit, there's an Ellen here! This time both eyebrows go up, her brother given a questioning look and a thumb hooked at the girl to clarify the question.

"Goldriders, eh! It's like the colour drives 'em to it." Dimitri notes with disconnected joy to his voice, like it's a good thing. "Any of them ever try to wrestle you? I'd like to see them try. They're so fragile, so easily mouldable, like sad, like…" Ramble ramble. He squints up at his sister, pulling a face as that tongue comes into view. "Well. I'd make a joke about how it'll be tough to live up to your whore name now, but that'd just be too easy, wouldn't it! Hey Ellen!" Far less gentle than his his sibling, he gives an Ellenleg a study prod with a heel. Then, he sits up with a 'hup' and slings an arm around Cerise's shoulders. "Did you hear? Cerise went to touch some eggs and she nearly bit her tongue off! I like to think they thought they had the wrong sibling and they were trying to do everyone a favour!"

"—Cerise?" Ellen crams the needle into the cloth of the mattress, delivers a good solid, reflexive punch (THUMP) to Dimitri's ankle and claps a hand around either side of the bedframe and hauls herself out — once more like a mechanic rolling out from beneath a vehicle. Except that Cerise's position sort of means Ellen ends up ass-first in Cerise's lap. Hi there. Upside down and not really seeming concerned with the sudden tangle she's grunting, "There's one're two goldriders that're solid." Grunt-grunt; she's taking the absolute LONG way to get back upright. She might be making it worse. "But lotta time, riders're a bunch of flailing cockrags, y'know? Y'humor 'em. They compensate ya." She lovingly pats Cerise's thigh, "We're all kinda Weyrwhores that way." Patpat.

This time, the way Cerise sticks her tongue out at Dimitri is intended for sass. Further retribution is prevented when someone drops a block of granite into her lap, in the form of a girlchild and her heaving squirms. Squirming heaves? Whatever, the performer reaches out to help haul Ellen upright and settled properly in her lap, back to front, so that Cerise can get to the girl's poor hair. Aaaa what has she done to her head it looks terrible. Commence with grooming. This talk of rider summons up a soft snort of amusement and a mumbling, "Hea' hea'." She agrees, in other words.

Everyone, have a lady-like whimper. It's from Dimitri, upon feeling the punch. His arm slips off of Cerise's shoulders and is subsequently inspected for dirt— but then used to push himself up and off the floor. "Well, you guys keep doing that. The whore thing," he offers merrily, his eyebrows twitching up and down, "I think my part's more in the, eeaah, fool direction'a things. Watch 'em jump me the moment I'm kicked out of these barracks, I'll be in that poofy pink dress again in no time. They love it." He turns to walk, reaching a hand up to the feather that was stuck in his hair earlier when it itches his scalp. He throws it a baffled look when he collects it and holds it between thumb and finger, but then… shrugs, and stucks it right back where it was, adding over his shoulder, "Ellen! However long either of us are here for- glad to have ya."

Sadly, Ellen's hair rather is a mess - but there's an odd organized chaos to it; a feral sense of deliberate-grunge style. Not that she is opposed to some grooming. Mmm. She leans into it. "Suck it up, buttercup," loving-concerned response to Dimitri's lady-like keen, "We'll make it a race on who gets exiled first. Winner can eat my ladydick." Ellen waves her goodbye with a middle finger and something… ragged about the upward twist at the side of her mouth. And she comments offhand in his absence, to the young woman behind her, "Y'know my dad got exiled once. For attackin' a candidate. Back in t'other when." Another life. She doesn't say 'our' when. Just… t'other. Perhaps this change in life can be easier, for the transient. "So I guess y'cant really talk, huh? You get enough Harping to scrawl a bit?" She's suddenly rummaging through her belt pouches - there are many.

The girl's choice of parting words for Dimitri summons another soft snort from Cerise, strong enough to stir the dirty strands of blonde she's manipulating between her fingers. Deliberate-grunge is being shaped into loose cornrows to keep it back and tidy and out of the way- unwashed hair braids so much more easily than clean hair. And she doesn't have to feel badly about having grubby hands, either! "Nuh," is her reply to talk of Cullen, who always did kind of creep Cerise out. What to do with men who have no apparent sexual drive and communicate in dark looks? SHE HAS NO IDEA! So she hadn't heard of that, but neither does she sound surprised. "Li'l," she adds for the purpose of scrawling. "Kin'a. Le'ers go ba'wa'ds sthill."

"Sounds good 'nough," Ellen leans to the side a little slowly, so that Cerise's grip on her hair doesn't get pulled loose mid-braid, and snags Dimitri's abandoned hide. It has random transcribed recipe items written on one side, which Ellen sets face-down against the ground alongside Cerise's thigh. They can write on the back. From her pouch, she's pulled a small chunk of charcoal and sets it on top of the hide, "How'sa Weyr been by you?" It has that kind of drear 'tell me yours, I'll tell you mine' drawl you get from people comparing experiences at the DMV.

Cerise's arms stretch, fortunately! She relaxes them when the girl goes tipping to allow that lean. Then it's back to securing little braids, with small strips of leather pulled from a beltpouch. Only after she's made certain that Ellen's hair is now completely tidy- a few leaves and also a twig discarded to the side- does she pay heed to the scrap of hide and charcoal. That question? That question leaves her lips pursing as she reaches for the drawin' stick.

Ellen's fingers are exploring Cerise's progress across her scalp as she goes. From behind, her heavy loadbearing shoulders have that poised sense of being utterly relaxed without, in fact, unclenching. Not for tension, but because the muscles in them are too well-sprung and awake to be able to loosen. It makes for a difficult gauge of temperament when her head tips down enough to read Cerise's note. Save that one callous hand drops to Cerise's thigh, and gives it a steady, brief pressure. "Ayuh, huh?" It's a neutral acceptance from deep in her throat. Then a snort. And, what may feel like a long time later she murmurs, lower, "…step softly. And mind who you speak of it to." Since her face is away, there's only her own crude handwriting that follows, written on the hide a small message.

You sense Ellen writes, more confidently but crude and off center: its all a game for them. the guardsll not stop it

"'yuh," Cerise confirms, patting her hand easily over Ellen's and making a pretty gesture of it, much more fluid in movement than her smaller counterpart. And certainly much prettier than the tenor of her speech, which is still thick, clotted, from the swelling of her tongue. There's a hnff and a sssnff and then she is reaching for the charcoal, making other soft, amused and somehow also discontented sounds deep in her throat as she writes.

To Ellen: Cerise scrawls: wsa teh red 1. bailee. trid to drwon him. he cnat swim. no betre then to tel any 1. you goin to be okay heer for all of this? staiyn put?

Ellen's fingers drum upon Cerise's knee, some hard steady warbeat tempo that's halted when more delicate fingers rest over them. She huffs out a heavy breath and crumples backwards, turning to fold up her arms over one of Cerise's legs, propping her chin on it. It's a very reluctantly-off-duty canine pose. Perhaps it's habitual environmental adaptation, or perhaps solidarity, but as Cerise doesn't speak, neither does Ellen. And she writes on the hide next.

It takes Cerise some time to read what's been written. Time and a little bit of a struggle, but she makes it through the test- and makes that odd huffy sound again, in lieu of laughter. As Ellen has decided to stake a claim to the lap, it makes it that much easier for the performer to slide her hands beneath the girl's armpits and then around her neck. Half-nelson, anyone? It's a lock! Gotcha! "Be't bo'ygaur'," she says in her mangled speech, "bu' can sti' bea' you u'." Hey, it's only her tongue that's mangled, and candidacy has managed to slough off any of the (minimal) spare body fat that the dancer had possessed before. She's all steel-cable wiry strength and locking limbs.

"Nheh." With Ellen's face once more at an an angle where her expression can't be seen, this small… calm laugh-sound is almost ominous. Her ONE free hand casually darts out to pluck up the hide and stuff it down the front of her shirt. Then — it loops around to jam a bony thumb up against the back of Cerise's ribs. And WRIGGLES AROUND hard against all those sensitive little nervy muscles there. Jabjabpoke. It's almost too calculated and too hard to be a tickle even. "Y'always welcome t' try." It's a little laughy-breathy because she's started to squirm. It's not a lean-muscle wiggling, but there is no weight in her that isn't muscle. It's like a SANDBAG filled with angry SNAKES.

Cerise is always game to try. The curve of sharply delineated biceps rise against Ellen's shoulders as she laces her hands behind the girl's head to push it forward and lift her arms. None of that poking, madame, please and thank you; it makes her grunt in horribly undignified fashion. "You go' sof'," the entertainer huffs as she flops backwards to carry her opponent with her, angrysnake back pressed to iron tense front. It is possibly the worst insult she can fling at the blocky trader, designed to provoke- she always //was/ better with words than with wrasslin'.

"Oh ho, lady. You've my word on this," Ellen can be heard grinning, the bounder-lumps of muscle in her back not straining so much as leaping hard here, unleashing there, each movement deliberate and with the full body behind it. Cerise actually does her a great favor, then, by flopping backwards - Ellen rocks with her all too eagerly, curling up her legs to continue the momentum with the lower half of her body. It becomes a backwards summersault, her knees come down on the ground to either side of Cerise's head. Very suddenly, they are eye to eye, Ellen knelt over above Cerise with thighs clamped in against either of the dancer's ears. "Y'dont wanna see hard."

Whups. See? This is why Cerise was always the face and the boys always handled the other stuff. She blinks up at Ellen's sudden repositioning- did she hear what was said, seeing as there are now legs on her ears?- and then her face creases with amusement. Rather than opting for retaliation, she fights back by reaching up and *boop!*, someone just got the end of their nose pushed. Fatality! "Ah win," she says, slowly and boldly both, the tip of her tongue not entirely eager to press to the roof of her mouth to enunciate that "n".

Still grinning, Ellen holds still and lets her nose be booped, eyes closing when boopIMPACT event is achieved. "Heh- good." Twelve she may be, but it's an odd, heavy veteran weight of approval, and Ellen begins to sit up. "—Candidates!" A sudden voice booms into the barracks, and Ellen immediately extracts herself to fold her hands in her lap. An assistant weyrlingmaster stands in the entryway, making a 'c'mere quick' gesture, "We got a window on the Sands. Let's go, while the queen's up for it!" There's a single moment of pause, where Ellen looks at Cerise — then she's standing. Adjusting her arm bracers, her tunic, and letting out her stride to fall in amongst those already queueing up. Off they go…